My Neighborhood

My block is an urban hodgepodge of buildings and styles. Two apartment buildings, one with a crenellated roof and fire escapes, the other with balconies outside the center apartments, face each other. The rest of the block is built up with private houses, some brick and some wooden. Many are detached houses with their own small landscaped front lawns, but a few are semi-detached. Three new private homes, solid Indian-red brick and much larger than the rest, supposedly belong to one wealthy family, brothers and sisters who have bought up land on the same street and built color-coordinated semi-mansions.

My block is quiet. I hear the humming of air conditioners, still needed on this first day of autumn, and the occasional whoosh of a car passing by on the avenue. As I approach the corner a chartreuse monk parrot squawks at me. I spot him on the phone wire, adjusting a twig in the large nest he and his family have built beside the transformer, to keep them warm in winter. Parrots in neighboring trees answer his chattering.

I round the corner and pass the home of a “survivor of the shield.” Her policeman husband was killed in the line of duty, as her license plate advertises. This woman decorates her home elaborately at each holiday, but so far, her Halloween decorations are not out and the house seems curiously naked without its usual display.

An older Asian woman holding a little girl’s hand passes me on the street. The woman shields herself from the sun with an oversized navy and white plaid umbrella. The little girl carries a red backpack. She’s probably done with pre-kindergarten for the day.

As I reach the next corner the parrots’ raucous calls intensify. Here there is a larger nest, and the parrots flit in and out of the trees around the perimeter of a small city park. Sometimes they land on the ground, a splash of green beside the drab pigeons and sparrows.

I cut through the park. The leaves have not turned yet but the ground is littered with crushed brown leaves. We have not had much rain. On the handball court, a young man of Asian descent, clad all in black, is smashing his handball against the wall. I wonder if he is supposed to be in school. A park attendant circles the park house, carrying a broom and dustpan. On the basketball court, another lone man, also Asian, dribbles a basketball.

In the playground, toddlers climb the equipment while grandparents watch. One group speaks Russian, another speaks Chinese, or Korean, or Japanese. I can’t easily tell the difference. I rarely hear English in this playground, except from some of the teenagers.

As I approach the main commercial drag on Avenue U, I see store signs and awnings in Chinese, Japanese, Russian, and other languages. Pakistani women in tunics and matching pants pass me, their heads scarved. Stricter Muslim women, clad in their burqas, wheel their babies in strollers. I hear every language but English on the next seven blocks as I head east.

I stop at an Asian supermarket and glance at the vegetables outside. The odor of fish wafts out from inside and I wrinkle my nose. Some of the vegetables are familiar: carrots, onions, green beans and scallions. But others are unrecognizable to the western eye. Some resemble elongated string beans, each one close to a yard long. There’s a long green vegetable that resembles a cross between a cucumber and a cactus. Fat green carrots and huge white radishes known as daikons are on sale beside the better-known bok choy and broccoli tops. The streets are thronged with Asian and East European shoppers, squeezing fruits, selecting the best string beans, and milling through the stores. This is a multilingual polyglot, Chinatown meets Little Tokyo meets Moscow on the Hudson. There’s even a Moscow on the Hudson Bakery.

Inside the supermarket, I find open bins full of beans, nuts and dried fruits. Glass jars hold mysterious roots selling for $60 a pound. I wonder what they are and what they are for; they must be something special at that price! I find twenty-five pound bags of rice and small packages of rice pasta. There are canned logans, lychees and water chestnuts, and pop top cans of coconut milk and grass jelly juice, whatever that is.

The variety of food around here is amazing. Besides the Asian supermarkets there are Russian groceries featuring Russian sausage and salami, Russian breads, bags of kasha and millet, both popular East European grains. There are abundant restaurants, too. I see Chinese restaurants and bakeries featuring sweet rolls and bubble tea, Vietnamese restaurants, and now a growing number of Japanese sushi and sashimi restaurants springing up. There are East European Caucasian restaurants, a Mexican restaurant and a new Malaysian one too. I’m expecting a Pakistani restaurant to open anytime now.

I leave the supermarket and head east. There is a fruit store on almost every block, sometimes one on each corner. Outside a discount clothing store, women pick through a table with a rainbow of cotton panties. When I read the sign I realize why they are so intent: the panties are on sale, three for a dollar. I join a blonde with an East European accent and we sort through the panties. Soon we discover the reason they are so cheap. The sizes are not correctly marked.

I eat lunch in Spiro’s Restaurant, a Greek coffee shop. A couple of booths away, I overhear a woman telling her lunch companion about her high blood pressure, her arthritis, and an operation on her elbow. At another booth, two middle-aged blondes are discussing hurricanes Katrina and Rita. At last, conversations I can understand and eavesdrop on! The restaurant is small, with one long row of booths and two shorter ones. The walls are painted pastel pink surrounded by wood paneling, and a mirror overlooks each booth. Slightly bedraggled silk flowers in vases adorn each formica tabletop, and on the walls are small prints by Monet. Piped in music plays the Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations.”

On the way home I notice the streets are quieter until I reach Ocean Avenue. St. Edmunds High School has let out, and girls in white blouses and pleated gray miniskirts wait at the bus stop. Orthodox Jewish girls from the nearby Mesivta cross the street, their concealing black skirts brushing their ankles.

My block remains quiet when I return. A young man wearing a backpack rollerblades past and the sound of his skate wheels breaks the near-silence. Even the parrots don’t chatter as I past beneath their nest. It is two-thirty and at three, the public schools will let out. Then the streets will ring with children’s voices again.